Quentin Durward by Walter Scott (popular ebook readers .txt) 📗

in the nuptial chamber—the stocking was thrown—and the bride's garter was struggled for in presence of the happy couple whom Hymen had made one flesh. The authors of the period were laudably accurate in following its fashions. They spared you not a blush of the bride, not a rapturous glance of the bridegroom, not a diamond in her hair, not a button on his embroidered waistcoat; until at length, with Astraea, “they fairly put their characters to bed.” [the reference is to the plays of Mrs. Aphra Behn. “The stage how loosely doth Astraea tread, who fairly puts each character to bed.”] But how little does this agree with the modest privacy which induces our modern brides—sweet bashful darlings!—to steal from pomp and plate, and admiration and flattery, and, like honest Shenstone [(1714-1763): an English poet best known by The Schoolmistress], “Seek for freedom at an inn!”

To these, unquestionably, an exposure of the circumstances of publicity with which a bridal in the fifteenth century was always celebrated, must appear in the highest degree disgusting. Isabelle de Croye would be ranked in their estimation far below the maid who milks, and does the meanest chores; for even she, were it in the church porch, would reject the hand of her journeyman shoemaker, should he propose faire des noces [to celebrate a wedding festivity], as it is called on Parisian signs, instead of going down on the top of the long coach to spend the honeymoon incognito at Deptford or Greenwich. I will not, therefore, tell more of this matter, but will steal away from the wedding, as Ariosto from that of Angelica, leaving it to whom it may please to add farther particulars, after the fashion of their own imagination.

“Some better bard shall sing, in feudal state How Bracquemont's Castle op'd its Gothic gate, When on the wand'ring Scot, its lovely heir Bestow'd her beauty and an earldom fair.”

[Ariosto (1474-1533): an Italian poet, the author of the poem Orlando Furioso, whose popularity was due largely to the subject—combats and paladins, lovers' devotion and mad adventures. Angelica is the heroine. Scott is sometimes called the Ariosto of the North.]

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Quentin Durward, by Sir Walter Scott